These Peregrinations To Paris -By Kene Obiezu

Nigeria’s 16th President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has travelled to Paris on a working visit. According to the presidency, the president would be away for about two weeks.

It would be the president’s seventh trip to Paris since he was sworn in on 29th May, 2023. In that time, the French president has not visited Nigeria even once.

Shortly after the president departed for Paris, the Vice-president also followed suit with a visit to Senegal.

Nigeria may be all quiet now, but it is correct to say that anger simmers just beneath the surface. In every region of the country, there is a sense that the rising costs of living wracking families in the country is a fallout of the government’s inability or refusal to get its priorities right.

The world today is a global village which is connected in many ways. Thanks to international cooperation, relations and diplomacy which foster international peace and development, there is much more countries share in common than was the case forty years ago.

While technology has breached boundaries, this cross-fertilization of ideas means more international travel for government officials than was the case. This is understandable. What is not is when the reasons for the frequent trips are unclear or, worse still, dubious.

With the president in France and the vice president going to Senegal, what is disturbing is not that they have travelled, as travel is inevitable. What is unsettling is that Nigerian public officers appear obsessed with travelling while in office. These travels, which include for medical trips, official trips and luxury are undoubtedly funded with public funds. In a country feeling the crunch and pinch of austere times, this propensity to travel which afflicts public officers at every level has not been shown to yield any tangible benefits for citizens.

There may never be official disclosures, but Nigerians are not too dumb to do the arithmetic. These trips surely cost an arm and a leg, and that is only officially.

While developed countries do well to establish their presence in almost every country of the world, they are unapologetically strategic. When they can, they influence the setting of key global events, meetings, or negotiations within their borders so that they can have others coming in rather than having to go out.
This usually means a boost for their local economy, businesses, tourism and international image.

In Nigeria’s case, public officers travel abroad for all manner of reasons, driving resources that should come to the country elsewhere.

Beyond the avarice and affectations of Nigeria’s public office holders, these foreign trips add nothing to the country. If anything, the country is rendered poorer by each trip with its image hit afresh.
Those who travel on Nigeria’s bill often return only with a renewed appetite for more travel. They often learn nothing there. Worse still, they do not think to replicate the efficiency and organization they observe in these countries in Nigeria.

What is truly the nature of the president’s constant trips to Paris? Why are Nigerians always left to keep guessing about the nature of these trips, when the public life of the one who is their president should be transparent? At a time when many former French colonies in Africa are doing all they can to sever ties, what is this obsession with Paris?

Crucially, what tangible benefits have these trips to Paris added to the Nigerian economy?

The president should cut down on his constant trips to Paris and elsewhere. This would cut down the cost of those frequent trips as well as curb the constant speculation. The image of a president who is seemingly all over the place, preferring to fly around the world rather than sit back and work in a country in dire need of attention, is a troubling one.

Kene Obiezu,
keneobiezu@gmail.com